RAMBO wrote:Just tried Mint/Mate on live cd, going to try Ubuntu, its variations and cinnamon later. I like Mints set up more than windows, its easier to find certain things. Could not md5 the cd for some reason. Thinking of just going ahead with the install and wiping out windows. I followed the steps but I think I can just do it easier from Mint later on.

I would still recommend two separate installs if you already have a Windows XP license.

khelben1979 wrote:According to the Linux Mint website, the distribution is based on Ubuntu and Debian. And the Ubuntu distribution would not be here if it weren't thanks to Debian. Besides that I've read a lot of positive things about Linux Mint myself, and their website really shines in comparison to the old Debian website, as it could attract more users just looking at the website itself.

Well, Ubuntu itself is based on Debian, but the reference to being "based on Debian" is referring to Linux Mint having a rolling release "Debian Edition" version that uses Debian testing as a base. If you're on Linux Mint (non-Debian edition) now, you can view the update repositories to see where it is pointing. The majority of updates are coming from the Ubuntu servers. Clem is an honest and fair guy, and he often gives recognition to both Canoncial and Debian for the contributions they make. You can see it in his comments on Mint reviews: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2038

RAMBO wrote:Just tried Mint/Mate on live cd, going to try Ubuntu, its variations and cinnamon later. I like Mints set up more than windows, its easier to find certain things. Could not md5 the cd for some reason. Thinking of just going ahead with the install and wiping out windows. I followed the steps but I think I can just do it easier from Mint later on.

I would still recommend two separate installs if you already have a Windows XP license.

Since I already have XP installed, I can just install Mint along side XP? I have the space on my HDD. Then I can go into windows and chose where I should boot from or will I automatically have the option to boot from either of the two at start-up like you said.

I read that ext2 should be used for Mint/Maya 13-Linux/Unix /boot rather than ext4 because of problems with Grub with ext4, is ext2 a better option for stability considering my system? Also, can I just skip the /home partition during install or would this cause instability-I think it would be better to start from scratch for each distro I test out, the /home partition contains your settings and personal folders right? All of my stuff is backed up to a portable. Thank you in advance, I am close to install.Specs: Celeron CPU 2.66 4/1/2004 driver2 Gigs ram. cannot go higherHigh tech Excaliber 9250 VGA graphics card140 G IDE HDDmobo-2003 Compaq

I'm pretty sure the GRUB/ext4 issue is an old one, specific to legacy GRUB implementations which are no longer widely used in current distros. My desktop currently boots from an ext4 volume (on a software RAID-1 volume, no less), and this is even a much older version of Ubuntu (10.04) than the one on which Mint 13 is based (12.04).

/home does not need to be on its own partition, though this is a fairly common practice. In theory, putting it on its own partition gives you some additional flexibility (i.e. you could have multiple distros installed in multi-boot which all mount the same /home partition), but in practice you may encounter problems with incompatible settings files unless all the distros you're booting are of similar vintage. My vote would be to keep them separate, or (to make it easier to share files between the different environments) just have your Documents and Downloads directories pointing at a shared area, instead of sharing the entire home directory.

just brew it! wrote:I'm pretty sure the GRUB/ext4 issue is an old one, specific to legacy GRUB implementations which are no longer widely used in current distros. My desktop currently boots from an ext4 volume (on a software RAID-1 volume, no less), and this is even a much older version of Ubuntu (10.04) than the one on which Mint 13 is based (12.04).

/home does not need to be on its own partition, though this is a fairly common practice. In theory, putting it on its own partition gives you some additional flexibility (i.e. you could have multiple distros installed in multi-boot which all mount the same /home partition), but in practice you may encounter problems with incompatible settings files unless all the distros you're booting are of similar vintage. My vote would be to keep them separate, or (to make it easier to share files between the different environments) just have your Documents and Downloads directories pointing at a shared area, instead of sharing the entire home directory.

Awesome, thanks! I have a question about security in Linux/Unix. Is free antivirus software good enough or should I wait and go buy something stronger before I start browsing the web? I mostly watch the news online and PBS programs.

Just throw everything on three partitions.1) Windows (as much space as you might need)2) Linux "swap" (1.5*RAM or less, since it's unlikely you'll use 6GB of swap on 4GB machine for example - the system will die for a day till it will memleak and trash 4+6GB to disk)3) Linux "/" as ext4 rest of the free space

Splitting linux system in / /boot /home /etc /var is some weird Linux geek tradition that makes it PITA for regular users without any gains whatsoever. Don't make things complicated - / as ext4, and swap closer to outer side of the disk, unless on SDD, in which case it doesn't matter.

Other schemes has the same problem as splitting Windows disk, like system builders tend to do !#@$#@%!. Ridiculously small system drive that runs out of disk space during some windows update, huge spare disk that's still unusable because My Documents/Program files/App Data where everything throws their junk is till on out of space C. And reinstalling windows on just C gives nothing, because every program on disk D will stop working because old registry is missing and so on.

Plus Linux makes it impossible to see how much space you have on each of the partitions, "du -h" is fugly, and disk space tools work only on plain hierarchy, so just don't do it! And backing up is also easier with "cp -R ~/* /mnt/sdcard" or something, or tarballing everything.

Spliting partitions is the dumbest idea ever, IMHO. Unless the second partition is a real dump drive. Where binary blobs like backups, iso's and backed up setups go.

RAMBO wrote:I read this by Bill Miller in the comments on this website http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/35676/ho ... -linux-pc/, about how to instal Linux/Unix and thought I would throw it on here. I do not know how accurate this is as I an new to the Linux/Unix environment.

...

I always select ReiserFS when possible as it seems to have a safer quicker recovery than any other File System I have found, if machine is powered off and on.

When dealing with Linux, you need to pay attention to how old information is since things can evolve fairly rapidly.

Although ReiserFS was technically brilliant and ahead of its time when it debuted, there is no way I would recommend it for a new installation today. Its inventor is serving time in prison for murdering his wife, and the company he founded to continue development of ReiserFS has gone out of business. As a result of this, while it is still available (AFAIK) on current distros, it is not what I would call a mainstream filesystem for Linux any more.

Ext4 also addresses many of the same shortcomings in earlier (ext2/3) filesystems that ReiserFS was designed to deal with (e.g. speedy recovery after an unexpected power loss), so IMO there's really no compelling argument to use it any more.

RAMBO wrote:Awesome, thanks! I have a question about security in Linux/Unix. Is free antivirus software good enough or should I wait and go buy something stronger before I start browsing the web? I mostly watch the news online and PBS programs.

Since there is a Windows with market share of 99%, and Linux is like 1%, most of which are geeks with virtual fortresses, I think most virus writers are too lazy to write Linux exploits. And the default installations are pretty damn safe. I would say living without antivirus is not really something you should have nightmares about. Especially if you're behind router and don't use "sudo" as a "please" word for everything.

RAMBO wrote:Awesome, thanks! I have a question about security in Linux/Unix. Is free antivirus software good enough or should I wait and go buy something stronger before I start browsing the web? I mostly watch the news online and PBS programs.

I wouldn't worry about it; until Linux becomes more widespread on the desktop (if it ever does...), 99% of virus writers aren't going to bother targeting it. Most distros have clamav in their repositories, if you're the paranoid type go ahead and install it. AFAIK Avast and AVG have Linux versions as well, but I have never tried them.

Most Linux distros also take a fairly minimalistic approach to network services, enabling only those services which are absolutely essential and those that you have explicitly requested. This reduces the number of potential attack vectors considerably. Just use a firewall (either an external one, or a software one from your distro's repository) and keep your browser up to date, and you should be fine.

Madman wrote:Splitting linux system in / /boot /home /etc /var is some weird Linux geek tradition that makes it PITA for regular users without any gains whatsoever. Don't make things complicated - / as ext4, and swap closer to outer side of the disk, unless on SDD, in which case it doesn't matter.

The /boot thing is a holdover from the days when old BIOSes frequently had trouble accessing all of the sectors on larger hard drives. Put /boot at the start of the disk, and let the Linux kernel deal with LBA after it boots. It may also have some advantages when dealing with software RAID arrays, but newer versions of GRUB can handle that even if /boot isn't given special treatment.

Madman wrote:Plus Linux makes it impossible to see how much space you have on each of the partitions, "du -h" is fugly, and disk space tools work only on plain hierarchy, so just don't do it! And backing up is also easier with "cp -R ~/* /mnt/sdcard" or something, or tarballing everything.

While I agree with your "don't bother with all the separate partitions" advice, I'm a little puzzled by this comment. The df command tells me exactly how much space is in use (and free) on every one of my mounted partitions, including ones I've imported from other file servers (NFS and/or Windows).

just brew it! wrote:I wouldn't worry about it; until Linux becomes more widespread on the desktop (if it ever does...), 99% of virus writers aren't going to bother targeting it.

Kinda nice feeling when you imagine Windows virus on Linux:1) P@wn W1nd0ze2) W1nd0ze not found, not a super user3) SEGFAULT

just brew it! wrote:While I agree with your "don't bother with all the separate partitions" advice, I'm a little puzzled by this comment. The df command tells me exactly how much space is in use (and free) on every one of my mounted partitions, including ones I've imported from other file servers (NFS and/or Windows).

Oh, true, it was "df". I still hate it, because you have to look up hierarchies, try to figure them out, why how and when the junctions where created and so on.

just brew it! wrote:The /boot thing is a holdover from the days when old BIOSes frequently had trouble accessing all of the sectors on larger hard drives. Put /boot at the start of the disk, and let the Linux kernel deal with LBA after it boots. It may also have some advantages when dealing with software RAID arrays, but newer versions of GRUB can handle that even if /boot isn't given special treatment.

If I understand correctly, /boot is still required for dmcrypt+luks installations, because /boot has to be unencrypted, and only after system has booted from there, other partitions are mounted. Although I heard that new GRUB is supposed to work even around that.

just brew it! wrote:While I agree with your "don't bother with all the separate partitions" advice, I'm a little puzzled by this comment. The df command tells me exactly how much space is in use (and free) on every one of my mounted partitions, including ones I've imported from other file servers (NFS and/or Windows).

Oh, true, it was "df". I still hate it, because you have to look up hierarchies, try to figure them out, why how and when the junctions where created and so on.

That's what "du --max-depth=N" is for.

(It skips symlinks by default, so the results don't get skewed by stuff that doesn't actually reside on the filesystem you started from. You can also specify --one-file-system, to skip hard mount points if needed.)

Madman wrote:Either way, it's possible to figure out what's happening if needed, but that's not very easy if multiple mount points are used.

Yup... *NIX's "everything's part of one big directory tree" philosophy is a good thing most of the time, but not always. I'll still take it over Windows' drive letter scheme any day, IMO the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Audio is one of the areas where Linux could definitely still stand some improvement. PulseAudio seems to have become the defacto standard audio stack for desktop distros, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

That said, this sounds like more of a wine problem (assuming your audio is otherwise working normally).